Poland bids to reclaim forgotten past as haven for Jews

A new Museum of Jewish history, on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, is due to open its doors to the public and aims to re-invigorate Jewish life in Poland. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

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--STORY CONATINS GRAPHIC IMAGES --
It was on Polish soil that Nazi Germany carried out one of the darkest acts of the Holocaust: expelling Jews from the Warsaw ghetto -- many destined for concentration camps in Poland. Footage shows children walking past fences at Auschwitz. For those that survived, starvation became a way of life. Millions of Jews died in World War Two -- many exterminated in concentration camps, where clothing, or in some cases human hair, is all that was left behind.
Now, Poland wants is to re-connect with its other role in Jewish history, as a home for 1,000 years to one of the world's biggest Jewish communities.
The country will take a step in that direction Tuesday with the opening of the main exhibition at Warsaw's newly built Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It's a project that sets out to remember not just how Jews in Poland died, but how they lived, says Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich.
CHIEF RABBI OF POLAND, MICHAEL SCHUDRICH, SAYING:
"My dream is that every non-Jew who visits will leave knowing more about Judaism and Jews. And that every Jew who visits will know more about Poland and the rich cultural experience of Poland."
On Tuesday, the presidents of Israel and Poland will lead a ceremony to open the main exhibition at the museum, a glass-sided building on the site of what was once Warsaw's Jewish ghetto.

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